


Upturned Dirt

by Smuppetsona (CarcharodonOrcinus)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, F/F, Goth Shennanigans, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 15:49:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11970588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarcharodonOrcinus/pseuds/Smuppetsona
Summary: Two years ago, Kanaya lost everything she had in her old life: her job, her mother, her humanity. Luckily she had a friend to help her get back on her feet and grow accustomed to a new life, but her relative idyll cannot last forever. Aradia has left her for a mysterious mission, and Kanaya must keep the cemetery by herself.Easy enough a task, even considering the unusual circumstances, if there were not a goth-shaped wrench throwing herself through the gates.





	Upturned Dirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brightsummersun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightsummersun/gifts).



The cemetery is a very peaceful place--during the day, at least. You tend to the flowers and the hedging, and occasionally you host a funeral. The black fabric of the mourners contrasts so well with the vibrant flowers you cultivate; it brings you pride to inject a bit of color and brightness into a crowd of the bereft. Sometimes they stop and stare at them, thinking. You’ll never get the chance to ask what.

However, this is not your ideal career. Before this, you were a lowly intern living with your mother while you tried to grovel your way into the world of haute couture. Your boss was a bitch, your paycheck was below minimum wage, and you never got a chance to spit in the coffee. And you would’ve given anything for the shot to show somebody your designs. Maybe you could’ve made it, but fate had other plans.

Your mother was driving the two of you home, and in the blink of an eye, you were in a hospital with a hole in your torso from a piece of scrap metal punching through you in the crash that put your mother in a coma. It was weird that it didn’t hurt a bit. You know why now, but it was weird then. You got up as soon as they would let you to see your mother.

There were so many tubes--saline and air and blood. It was frigid, unwelcoming. But even clinging to life, she looked so at ease, beautiful. Your poor mother.

_We don’t think she’ll wake up, even if she survives. You’ll have to decide what happens to her, the doctors said._

You’re an orphan now.

The first month out of the hospital was rough. Grueling, even. You went through your voicemail and found that you had lost your shitty, under-paid, zero-visibility fucking internship because you’d been out sick for too long and they had other applicants more than eager to fill your position. And then you still had to make funeral arrangements.

Aradia was a saint in your time of need. She took care of everything--the body, the wake, the funeral, she even advised you what flowers to pick--and then she offered you a job as a groundskeeper and a room in her home there. You packed everything you had in the city and left.

You live and work alone now.

She isn’t dead (you think), but she did ask you a very strange question before disappearing and leaving behind an even stranger note:

_sorry you had to find out this way but it is what it is! i’m leaving you in charge of the cemetery for the foreseeable future_

_there might be a few unpredictable changes while i take care of some business, so please keep that chainsaw of yours on you_

_and yes the changes are that the undead might start rising :( do what you have to keep them corralled inside the walls but please make sure they get buried again before the sunrise!_

_i got you a few bloodpacks to hold you over until you can find a new source. sorry to leave you high and dry there too_

_hope to see you soon!_

_love, aradia_

That was about 6 months ago.

You had been sewing a new gown most of the day--a deep red floor-length gown with jade accents that’s meant to open up like a rose in bloom as you spin--and time has snuck away from you; the sun is below the tall brick wall bordering the grounds, and soon it will disappear completely, not even its gorgeous pink haze left behind. You sigh and stretch. You’ve been hunched over that thing for hours trying to get it just _so_ and missing your mark. Now you’ve got no choice. Unfinished, you put the dress away and grab a pack from the fridge to sip while you get ready for your night-job.

Maybe it’s just the contemplative mood you’re in, but you think this is going to be one hell of a night.

* * *

 

You are a tumbleweed blowing into a ghost town on a roadtrip with your brother (a noted coward), and you’ve ditched him in a karaoke club to break into the massive cemetery with a towering stone wall that you drove past on the way in. He was, of course, invited, but he is, of course, a fucking coward who only cares for dead animals; dead people give him the creeps. You, however, are a goth, and a damn committed one at that. If you see the most enormous, private, and guarded cemetery you’ve ever encountered in a shitty town with a dwindling population, you are breaking in. It’s what one does.

Just in case of an opportune moment such as this, you’ve kept a pair of bolt-cutters in the truck, and you are now using them to snip the padlock chaining the gate closed. It falls to the ground, and you expect it to clatter like metal against stone path should, but it’s silent. This shit is just too fucking good.

You nudge the gate open (also silent, which is a huge mood-killer--how are you supposed to set the scene for yourself if there is no ominous creaking gates to open as you enter?) and slide inside.

Hedges as tall as the outer walls line the entry path, and their branches are entwined with flowering vines. The sun’s last ray vanishes beyond the horizon; the glow of the early moon casts the leaves in a blue pallor, the petals in stark white. The gate creaks as the breeze blows it shut behind you, and now you’re in business for some spooky cemetery fun.

The hedges seem to end at a statue of an angel surrounded by flowers; her halo is wreathed in the same flowering vine in the hedges. They snake around her torso and neck in a hatching pattern. You walk towards her.

You hadn’t paid much mind to the lazy sound of the evening cicada while you were outside the gates, but the sound is gone inside. There’s definitely a spell deafening the sound on each side. Someone is doing something they shouldn’t, and you want in.

As you get closer, you take more in of the towering angel. Her arms are outstretched, reaching for the moon, her wings folded back. Her face is covered with a veil that stretches down her entire body--at least, you assume it does; the floral arrangement around her covers her nearly to her hips and cascades down like water from a fountain.

The tall hedges do not end as you expected, but break up the entire cemetery into four segments. It looks like it might be a maze. You can see the tall spire of the mausoleum over the hedges in what you estimate to be the middle of the property. You are almost certain that that’s where the action is, but how to get there? If you had a machete, you’d just hack your way through, but it didn’t fit in your purse and the bolt-cutters were a bigger priority, and you still had to leave them at the gate for their unwieldiness.

You turn back to the angel. You hadn’t noticed her index finger pointing to the right behind her; in fact, you’re quite certain she’d had both hands cupped, fingers touching together. It is a sign, you decide, and you take the path she wants you to.

The space between the hedge walls is much wider here than in the entry to accommodate the bodies. Headstones line either side of the stone path. Most of the ones you see here look fairly new, but one in particular catches your eye.

The sod is freshly-lain--the faint edges are still visible, and the grass is shorter and newer than elsewhere. You approach it to read the epitaph of the poor sap who recently kicked it.

_Martha Gunth_

_1954-2011_

_Beloved mother and grandmother._

_May she sing with angels._

Dear old Martha should’ve been laid to rest 6 years ago. Someone is doing a _lot_ of things they shouldn’t here. The thrill grows more enticing by the minute.

You hear groaning in the distance, like a tree about to topple. You glance back at the angel like she’ll have answers. You can only see her hands above the hedges now, perfectly cupped with fingers aligned. Oh, how she teases.

As the mausoleum draws closer, the breeze brings you the smell of rot: roadkill and shit in summer heat. Reflexively you dry heave, your body trying to rid you of the gross impurity you’ve just been exposed to. You, unlike your body, are not a weak little bitch, so you cover your nose and keep creeping towards your fucking goal.

You’ve had to turn many times, but haven’t encountered a fork yet. You are hoping that means the design is only meant to evoke a maze, or perhaps just a sense of privacy.

The spire is so close now, it can’t be more than another hedge away, but the stench is becoming overwhelming; you lean against an obelisk to get your bearings. Something moves behind you. You retch.

* * *

 

You just had to be right. When aren’t you? You heard metal clattering on stone and lo and behold, some absolute fucker cut your padlock and invited themself into your zombie-filled death labyrinth. And now you can smell death on the air, meaning one of your charges has clawed their way out of the earth again.

 _" Fuck,"_ you hiss.

It’s nearly masked by the death-stench, but you can detect a hint of cocoa butter too. That has to be your intruder. You scramble to get a fresh lock on the gate so no one else can get in or out, then start tracking the zombie/intruder-stink. Down the rightwards path you head.

Aradia asked you two years ago to start growing these hedges in this pseudo-maze. You thought it was an impractical concept for a cemetery, but you had only just started working for her and didn’t want to argue, and you had to admit there was a certain elegant mystique to a graveyard maze. You would later understand that she planned this as a battle strategy. The zombies are slow and stupid, and easily get lost in the many straightforward turns, making it hard for them to congregate and swarm you. Most nights, you won’t get more than 15 tops popping up, but full moons are very active nights. Your record stands at 84 risen. You had to re-bury each of them before dawn or something vague might’ve happened. It’s a good thing you don’t need to sleep anymore.

So, normally, the hedges are useful, but right now, you hate them for slowing you down. You zip through turn after turn, trying to reach the zombie before the zombie reaches your trespasser.

Rotting, shambling flesh, green and sickly and caked in soil, it dives for a woman leaning on an obelisk tombstone.

“Look out!” You scream, ripping your chainsaw into action. You run, but it’s already on top of her! All you can see is the zombie’s back as blood oozes to the ground.

 _I should’ve hurried, I should’ve prioritized this and not the damn lock, I could’ve saved her,_ you think in shock. You can’t move.

The zombie falls backwards, two large needles jammed in its eye-sockets. It writhes on the ground. Relieved, you slice it in half to finish it off for the night.

You still your chainsaw to get a good look at the woman who has recklessly entered your grounds and countered a zombie. Her brow is covered in sweat and flecked with the same dead blood that has streamed onto her shirt, a black camisole covered with a black lace bolero. The hair-band she wears has done nothing to keep her bleach blonde hair from sticking to her face in strings. She looks like she’s going to hurl.

She’s the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.

“You need a bath,” you say.

“I’ve been worse,” she croaks. She then hunches over and vomits on top of the zombie, splashing her black boots with sick.

You step closer and put a hand on her back while she finishes up.

“You are absolutely taking a bath right the hell now.”

You wait for her to pry her needles from the zombie’s sockets, then gently you push her forward and she follows your lead.

* * *

“So... what manner of dark creature has lured me to it’s den?”

Arm slung over her shoulder, she leads you to a small cabin in the corner of the cemetery, only visible by its chimney from the hedges. She’s much taller and thinner than you, built like a model, but you can feel the tight muscle of her arms and shoulders through her shirt. She doesn’t seem to struggle at all holding her chainsaw one-handed as her other is slipped under your arm.

Her face, taupe skin hued-green like a corpse under the moon, tilts away from you at your question.

“I am just the groundskeeper here. Nothing dark or mysterious or even undead. About me. The zombies are indeed undead.” Though her voice doesn’t waver, you aren’t sure what you should call that if not a nervous stammer. You think you catch a glimpse of fang, but perhaps it’s wishful thinking.

“Are you going to let me leave after this, or am I being held captive?”

“I may let you out on good behavior in the morning, but until then I cannot trust you not to meddle in my graveyard.”

“That may be a wise decision. Still, I expect a 5-star prison cell.”

She chuckles, which you can only tell by the lift of the corner of her mouth and the stutter of her shoulders, and replies, “I will do my best to accommodate you.”

She untangles herself from you to unlock the door, then ushers you inside and demands you lie down on the couch.

“I’ll prepare the bathroom for you. Stay right there and do not move.” She has a deep, smooth voice and an unbroken monotone. She doesn’t break eye-contact with you either until you sit your ass down on the couch like she told you to.

“You have my word--I will be an honest and obedient prisoner.”

“I don’t register sarcasm, so I will assume you are being serious,” she says before vanishing into the hallway.

You wait all of two seconds before making yourself comfortable with this beautiful stranger’s belongings. First, you inspect the photo on the wall.

Above you, the woman who just sliced a zombie in half before you laughs, her face a few years younger and filled with red flush. She’s at a fair with what you can only assume is her mother: they share the same gaunt face with prominent cheekbones and dark, piercing eyes. You wonder how old the photo is, but there was no date on the back. Has her mother seen her since her face drained of that red flush?

You need to know what she is. You put the photo back on the wall and tip-toe for the kitchen. The cabin is small, the fridge is just a couple yards from the couch, unbarred by any kind of walls or doors or even archways. The whole cabin might have a grand total of four distinct rooms, which is admittedly very unfamiliar for you, having grown up in a very large and modern house with no neighbors and few friends. You quickly reach it while you can still hear water running.

You slip your finger under the seal, and slowly crack it open. What you expect to see is blood, blood lining the shelves in bottles and bags, or maybe some severed limbs with holes ripped into them by powerful fangs. What you see instead is a well-manicured hand with _very_ short nails pushing the door back closed.

“I told you to lie down.” Her breath wisps through your hair and makes it stand on end. She is right behind you, rub-your-ass-on-her-crotch close. She’s fast and she’s sneaky.

You look up over your shoulder at her and say, “I was just going to get a drink. Or am I not allowed a glass of water and a crust of bread? Should I call the UN to alert them?”

“I will get you water, but you should know the fridge is full of rot right now. The power was out recently and everything spoiled. I haven’t had the opportunity to clean it out today, and you may vomit again if you smell it.” Well played.

However, if she really is a vampire, you have one thing on her: copious amounts of fresh blood. You keeping looking over your shoulder at her and slowly pull your sleeve down to expose your neck.

“I’ll just take that bath first,” you say as you lean back into her, not close enough to touch, but just enough to suggest it, “I want the warm heat of the bath to envelope me after my brush with death to remind me of the warm waters of the womb we all seek to return to. Also, I want out of these clothes.” You pull your sleeve down a little further.

She stares at the exposed skin and stammers, “Um. I will escort you to the bathroom, then.”

* * *

“There is a new toothbrush on the counter beside the towel I have set out for you. Enjoy your bath. I will return with some fresh clothes for you. Please call for me if...”

And she’s pulling off her shirt before you can even turn around. You can only see her back--her arms stretching over her head, flexing the muscles taut and bouncing the rolls on her love-handles ever-so-slightly--before you can avert your eyes, but you have not been spared the knowledge that she was not and is not wearing a bra.

“..If you need anything,” you somehow manage to complete, but your head is racing with much more prominent thoughts than speech.

“And what should I call you?” Her skirt hits the floor with a soft _pouf_ , and you pray some form of underwear accompanied it or it will be too much for you to handle. She reeks of vomit and death and it’s her naked body that you’ve got a full head of.

“Kanaya. Kanaya Maryam. And your name?”

With a _slosh_ , she slips into the tub, apparently content to leave the door wide open with you standing in the door frame.

“You’re a very detail-oriented woman, Kanaya. I’m surprised you found the time to put rose petals in my bath when you were so quick to stop me from committing the crime of getting a drink.”

You may have gone a little over-board with the bath. You had already set out the towel, the washcloth, the toothbrush, and a bottle of cocoa butter lotion before deciding you could do better. Then you poured a few drops of lavender essential oil into the tub, plucked a rose from outside the window and scattered its petals, and you were about to find some candles and light them when you heard footsteps on the tile of your kitchen floor. There are two primary advantages to superhuman speed, one of them being impressing girls, and the other being stopping the same girl from finding hard evidence of your affliction.

“You are already trespassing and breaking and entering; perhaps someone _should_ try to limit your rap sheet for the night. You could at least tell me your name before you try anymore criminal activities, like snooping through my medicine cabinet.”

“I appreciate the smothering, but I believe you already have a premonition of my name, perhaps by some occult means.”

“What?”

She sighs. “It’s Rose Lalonde.”

“Oh. Pleasure to meet you. It’s a lovely flower.”

“Likewise. Now if you don’t mind, I’m trying to bathe.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Never have you shut a door so fast. The image of her back turned to you, her khaki skin in the soft yellow light, it makes you wonder what if feels like to touch her. Her neck… you want to brush her blonde curls away and drink.

You haven’t drunk much from a real person directly since Aradia left. It’s not exactly an easy question to ask from someone (Yes, nice to meet you, can I suck your blood? Is that cool?) and many of your friends live quite a distance away. In addition to the bloodpacks you’ve been stealing, you’ve had to resort to just catching people sleeping and taking a sip like a vampire bat. It’s pretty undignified and it makes you feel like a monster.

You haven’t slept with a woman in a long time, either. Your last girlfriend left you for her probation officer right before running off with her to Miami a little over a year ago, and you aren’t the type to do hook-ups. But like a moth to flame your uninvited guest draws you.

You are supposed to be the creature of seduction and destruction, but after witnessing this mortal cut down an undead with a mere set of knitting needles while nearly keeling over herself, you sense she has a power you could scarcely dream of. It intimidates, arouses, and concerns you. You haven’t got a clue what she’s here for, except maybe to taunt you. And yet still you get the impression she’s in way over her head.

What have you both gotten into?

Without much luck, you try to set aside your troubled thoughts and set about get something clean for Rose to wear. Nothing of yours would fit: you being slender and tall, and her being shorter and plumper. You open the door to Aradia’s room.

You have cleaned it endlessly since she left. Pressing and repairing and putting away clothes, dusting and vacuuming and wiping up cobwebs before they can start, washing the windows and watering the lilies you’ve planted in a pot for her. Perhaps she will not appreciate all the work you’ve done (particularly patching the holes in her skirts), but it is work you needed to do. It has to be clean and sunny when she returns. It has to look like she’s coming back any day now.

You pull open the top drawer of Aradia’s armoire and inspect its contents. Black, black, gray, blood red, and black--these should do nicely. Aradia is a pinch taller than Rose and a bit fatter, but her clothes should still fit much better than anything you have, and you hardly have time to craft a new outfit for her. Out you pull a long black skirt which you’ve repaired by patching over its holes and embroidering red and yellow bouquets of cosmos to conceal the patches, and to match it you pick out a red off-the-shoulder blouse. Rose’s bare shoulders flash through your mind again. Lacking the strength to put it back and dispel your mildly erotic visions, you sheepishly pull out a modest black t-shirt to offer her as well.

* * *

 

Black blood swirls off your skin, clouding the water and dancing with the red petals, making you wish for a shower, but Kanaya’s bathroom lacked that basic necessity.

It seems you were ill-prepared for zombies when you broke in--you hadn’t considered them a real possibility. You were expecting perhaps a low-level witch gothin’ up the mausoleum, maybe a group of uninitiated cultist-types sacrificing some chickens. Not a probably-vampire guarding a prison for the less fortunate (and much uglier) undead.

Those dead, flat eyes, ready to roll out of its skull--you only saw them for a second before you pinned them into place on reflex. It should’ve never been able to get that close to you. You should’ve heard it coming, but it was like all the sound was still yards away. Can zombies do that? What exactly have you stumbled into?

Kanaya knows _something_ , she has to. You can’t leave here until you know what.

You reach from the tub to grab your purse, rifling through it until you find your phone. 

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2ch80wi)

You have no doubts Dave has been rapping his own lyrics right on top of whatever songs that poor bar could provide. You can almost hear him raving about planets as big as your mother’s ass crashing into the sun as the noble Captain Dipshit cries and salutes from his spaceship while the Big Man himself (whoever he may be) pulls out his rock hard member and strokes it vigorously, all overlaid on the instrumental of Before He Cheats. Those poor souls trapped in with your tormenting twin. They never stood a chance.

You put your phone back down and get back to trying to clean yourself off. The water turns murky with filth, and you decide to just drain it and start sponging yourself clean and rinse your hair under the running faucet. When you leave, you are calling this woman a damn plumber and hooking her up with a shower, and damn the expense. This shit is fucking inhumane.

As you towel off, your captor knocks.

“I have brought you some clothes to change into, considering what you came in is now covered in various disgusting fluids. I would offer to wash them, but I do not own a drying machine,” she shouts through the door. Goddamn. You must bring this chick into the modern era. Fuck zombies, fuck dark magic, this is life or death.

You wrap the towel around yourself, rewrap it a littler lower on your bust, then open the door and lean against it. Kanaya’s eyes go wide then dodge you entirely. You brush your hair to one side with your hand, shaking off a few droplets and exposing your neck again. She swallows hard.

Abruptly, she shoves the clothes towards you. You stumble with the force of it.

“How kind to offer these to me rather than the customary burlap sack,” you say as you unfold them. Two shirts--one a modestly cut death-metal band shirt you can’t decipher and the other an off-the-shoulder blouse with embroidered flowers that will make your tits look delectable--and a long skirt with more flowers. None in Kanaya’s size. You continue, “Are these a girlfriend’s? An ex, perhaps?”

“A friend’s. She won’t be needing them anytime soon, and I happen to be all out of burlap,” she says, daring to glance at you again, “Was your bath enjoyable? I hope the lavender oil was relaxing.”

“Of course.” You hadn’t noticed any lavender oil; you had assumed that was just the smell of soap. “Nothing like a warm bath to get the blood flowing freely.”

She grimaces like you’ve told her a very bad joke. It’s such a new expression from what you’ve seen so far; unguarded. You’re certain you see a fang now.

“Please just get dressed and brush your teeth. The vomit smell is much more prominent now that you don’t also smell like death.”

Her skirt flutters like a moth’s wings as she walks away, her hips swishing gently. She stretches her arms up and out as she yawns, like she’s had a long day at work and wishes she could turn in, but the day still stretches longer.

There’s something she _has_ to know.

You feel sick.


End file.
